Mickadeit: Suspect in officer slaying may walk

John J. Stephens, surrounded by supporters, emerges a free man from the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana in 1999. FILE: H. LORREN AU JR., ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

I never met Garden Grove police Officer Howard Dallies nor wrote about the violent act that befell him. But like everybody who has covered Orange County crime for a while, along with every veteran cop and prosecutor in O.C., I know the name.

Dallies is the only Orange County officer killed in the line of duty whose murder has never been solved. Not officially anyway.

Saturday is the 20th anniversary of his death. The man police believed killed him committed another crime in 2003 and is doing 25 years to life in Folsom – a fact that as far as I can tell has never been reported. While true justice may not have been served in the eyes of Dallies' friends and family, they were somewhat consoled that the man they believe killed Dallies was going to spend the rest of his life, or at least a big chunk of it, in prison.

But because of a recent change in the law, that is no longer necessarily so. As soon as April 5, John J. Stephens could walk.

About 2:45 on the morning of March 9, 1993, Howard Dallies was on his on patrol alone, when he pulled over a motorcyclist in the 10000 block of Aldgate Avenue.

Why he pulled him over is unknown. Dallies never radioed it in. He got out of the patrol car and approached the motorcyclist. The man pointed a semi-automatic pistol at him and gunned him down in cold blood. Dallies was hit three times, once in the face, once in his bulletproof vest and once in the abdomen, below the vest. He never had a chance to draw his gun. The gunman fled on the bike, a gray Kawasaki that was later found abandoned. It had been stolen.

Hearing the shots, neighbors came pouring out of their homes and tried to help Dallies. One of his colleagues, John Yergler, arrived and cradled Dallies in his arms. The wounded officer told Yergler that the shooter was a lone male and gave a sketchy description: white male, 5-10, 30 to 35 years old, black leather jacket.

Dallies was taken by ambulance to UCI Medical Center, where he died three hours later. Dallies, who grew up in Placentia, left behind a wife and two sons. He was 36.

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More than 40 investigators hit the streets to interview snitches, druggies, gangbangers and other crooks. Something a cabbie said about giving a ride to a man late that night pointed to Stephens at the beginning of the investigation, but Stephens had an alibi. When cops found that the same gun used to kill Dallies had been used to shoot a Santa Ana security guard who survived, they thought they had a break. But the security guard failed to pick Stephens out of a lineup.

Stephens, however, had other problems with law enforcement. He had a violent past, with convictions for battery in 1990, brandishing a weapon during a meth deal gone bad in 1992, and in 1993, just days after Dallies was killed, of beating a man with a hammer. Later in 1993, he was convicted of burglary and shooting a man in the chest. Stephens went to prison.

Investigators continued to work the Dallies case. They worked it for four years. A team of 10 – some of them retired cops who came back – worked literally day and night at times. They worked through 4,000 tips. They traveled to eight states. At one point they bulldozed a backyard looking for evidence. They amassed some 80,000 pages of documents. The reward grew to $100,000.

Finally, in July 1997, just five days before Stephens was to be released from state prison in Tehachapi, Garden Grove police made their move. They went to Stephens' cell, arrested him and drove him back to Orange County, where he was jailed and charged with murdering Dallies.

What had changed in four years was that witnesses who had been reluctant to finger Stephens had grown distant from him and were ready to talk. Police believe Stephens shot Dallies because Stephens was on a stolen motorcycle and feared Dallies would discover that.

A former girlfriend of Stephens' who was once his alibi for March 9, 1993, changed her story. Lola Duvall, a former drug addict, was willing to testify that Stephens had persuaded her to lie and say he was with her all that night. In truth, she testified, Stephens had gone out that night, and the next morning he dyed his hair.

Related Links

John J. Stephens, surrounded by supporters, emerges a free man from the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana in 1999. FILE: H. LORREN AU JR., ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Mary Dallies-Carpenter accepts flowers in memory of her husband, Officer Howard Dallies Jr., at Garden Grove's 25th annual Call to Duty police memorial in 2012. FILE: MICHAEL GOULDING, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A painting of slain Garden Grove Officer Howard Dallies depicts the street the city named after him in the background. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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